In these times of American hyper-partisanship, even the response to an act of God like hurricane Katrina is revealing.

The disaster, which devastated the extremely red states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, brought no snide claims of "divine retribution" from the voices of the left. No one declared that a just God wrought vengeance upon the South for its sins of slavery, succession, civil war, Jim Crow or more recently, its coronation of George W. Bush. Instead, the liberal blogosphere, led by sites like DailyKos, urged readers to come to the aid of their fellow Americans, providing news updates, offers of shelter for refugees and support for the Red Cross.

Contrast that reaction to the compassionate conservative response of the radical right to acts of God - and man. Time and after time, the mouthpieces of the American Taliban that now have the ear of the President and the wallet of the Republican Party praised the wrath of an angry God that smited their enemies for a laundry list of sins and perversions.

Start with the AIDS crisis. As that frightening new disease appeared in the U.S. in the early 1980's and devastated the gay community, many on the radical right seemed to take pleasure - and vindication - at God's supposed retribution. Moral Majority leader Falwell played AIDS as divine retribution for sodomy and in a 1987 fund-raising letter, accused gay men of donating blood because "they know they are going to die--and they are going to take as many people with them as they can." Moral Majority co-founder and former head of the Southern Baptist Convention Charles Stanley concluded, "God created the AIDS epidemic to indicate his displeasure over America’s acceptance of the homosexual lifestyle." And only one year after his 1992 GOP presidential run, Pat Buchanan stated, "The poor homosexuals -- they have declared war upon nature, and now nature is extracting an awful retribution (AIDS)."

Would-be Huge Chavez hit man Pat Robertson was not silent on AIDS, either. In 1995, Pat Robertson said that gay Americans "want to come into churches and disrupt church services and throw blood all around and try to give people AIDS and spit in the face of ministers."

Others on the reactionary right took a more strategic approach. Paul Cameron, of the Family Research Institute's predecessor, the Institute for the Scientific Investigation of Sexuality, charged that gay sex was a "crime against humanity" and led to "mixing germs on an international basis." Cameron led a crusade for universal HIV testing and the quarantine of everyone who tests positive for virus antibodies, and advocated the forced segregation of homosexuals from society. It's no wonder that a common conservative slogan of the day parodied the advertisements for Raid insecticide, "AIDS kills fags dead."

For another disgusting chapter in the conservative book of divine retribution, look at the reaction to the catastrophic attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001. Men of faith such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson did not mourn the loss of life, grieve for their countrymen or even seek to rally the nation. Instead, appearing on the 700 Club, they sought to cast blame and attribute the terrorist attack to Providence angered by the sin and debauchery of conservative enemies:

FALWELL: "I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen.'"

ROBERTSON: "We have sinned against Almighty God, at the highest level of our government, we've stuck our finger in your eye. The Supreme Court has insulted you over and over again, Lord. They've taken your Bible away from the schools. They've forbidden little children to pray. They've taken the knowledge of God as best they can, and organizations have come into court to take the knowledge of God out of the public square of America."

The Robertsons, Falwells and Buchanans of the world differ only in degree, and not kind, from the likes of the Reverend Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas. Phelps has held anti-gay protests all over the country, most notably at the 1998 funeral of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard. Phelps latest abomination is to lead demonstrations at the funerals of U.S. troops killed in Iraq. Phelps and his congregants (mostly family members) contend that American soldiers are being killed in Iraq as vengeance from God for protecting a country that harbors gays. At their funerals, they offer shouts "God hates fags" and "God hates you" at the mourners.

All of which raises the question: where was Pat Robertson during hurricane Katrina? The same man who prayed to God to kill American Supreme Court justices has also claimed that his power of prayer altered the course of hurricane Gloria in 1985, sparing his headquarters in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

So while those on the left offer compassion, assistance and prayers for their neighbors impacted by the natural disaster that was Katrina, the reactionary right continues to use divine retribution as just another tool in its arsenal. All involved would do well to reflect on Abraham Lincoln's words of caution to North and South from his second inaugural:

Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other...The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes.

UPDATE: Predictably, a host of radical right religious groups have in fact deemed Katrina God's retribution against the sodomites and licentiousness of New Orleans, including Repent America, New Covenant Fellowship and Franklin Graham of Samaritan's Purse.

—Perrspective 11:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (13) |